Probiotics, believed to help with digestion, are increasingly being studied to treat wide-ranging conditions, from colic to cholesterol and the common cold.

One of the fastest-growing dietary supplements, probiotics are now prominent on drug and big-box store shelves. They are live microorganisms—or "good" bacteria—that when consumed in capsules or yogurt are said to confer a health benefit.

Colorectal cancer is treatable when detected early and today there are more than 1 million survivors living in the United States.

Colorectal cancer or colon cancer, occurs in the colon or rectum and although it affects men and women of all ages and races, colorectal cancer is more prevalent in people 50 years or older. Early detection through proper screening is key.

Ray and Terry's 's insight:

Did you know: 1.5M Americans have IBD, which increases the risk of developing colorectal cancer -and- makes it harder to detect early symptoms.

If you or someone you know has IBD, make sure they get screened for CRC!

Houston Methodist researchers have developed magnetic nanoparticles that in tests delivered drugs to destroy blood clots up to 1000 times faster than a commonly used clot-busting technique.

If the drug delivery system performs similarly well in planned human clinical trials, it could mean a major step forward in the prevention of strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and other dire circumstances where clots — if not quickly busted — can cause severe tissue damage and death, the researchers say.

MIT chemical engineers have designed a new type of self-healing hydrogel that can be injected through a syringe to supply one or two different drugs at a time.

In theory, gels could be useful for delivering drugs for treating cancer, macular degeneration, or heart disease because they can be molded into specific shapes and designed to release their payload in a specific location over a specified time period. However, current gels are not very practical because they must be implanted surgically.

An ingredient found in extra-virgin olive oil called oleocanthal has been known as a compound capable of killing a variety of human cancer cells, but how this process actually played out was not understood. Now, a team of researchers has uncovered not only how oleocanthal destroys cancer cells, but that it is able to do so while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

Strokes, heart attacks, and traumatic brain injuries are separate diseases with certain shared pathologies that achieve a common end: cell death and human injury due to hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.

In these diseases, a lack of blood supply to affected tissues begins a signaling pathway that ultimately halts the production of energy-releasing ATP molecules — a death sentence for most cells.

By employing derivatives of humanin, a naturally occurring peptide encoded in the genome of cellular mitochondria, researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev are working to interrupt this process,

David H. Gracias at The Johns Hopkins University and colleagues note that many robotic tools require cords to provide power to generate their movements, adding to the bulk of robots and limiting the spaces they can access.

To address this constraint, scientists have turned to hydrogels. These soft materials can swell in response to changes in temperature, acidity or light, providing energy to carry out tasks without being tethered to a power source.

Resveratrol, touted for its potential to prevent heart disease, may also help prevent age-related decline in memory, according to new research from Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

Ashok K. Shetty, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine and Director of Neurosciences at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, has been studying the potential benefit of resveratrol, an antioxidant found in the skin of red grapes, as well as in red wine, peanuts, and some berries, and also available in pill form.

Shetty and his team believe resveratrol also has positive effects on the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is critical to functions such as memory, learning, and mood.

Researchers at Cornell University have successfully treated diabetic rats by engineering a strain of lactobacillus, a rod-shaped bacteria common in the human gut, resulting in up to 30 percent lower blood glucose levels. The technology could pave the way for a new treatment for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes that could one day see managing diabetes be as easy as taking a daily probiotic pill..

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that around 29 million people have the disease, many of whom aren't even aware they have it. The Cornell study could take us one step closer to a safe, effective way for people to control the disease.

By combining micro-imprinting and electro-spinning techniques, researchers at Shanghai University’s Rapid Manufacturing Engineering Center have developed a vascular graft (blood-vessel bypass) composed of three layers for the first time.

This tri-layered composite allowed researchers to combine separate materials to provide mechanical strength and also promote new cell growth, not possible with existing vascular grafts, which are limited to a single or double layer.

Kaiba Gionfriddo was born prematurely in 2011. After 8 months, his lung development caused concerns, although he was sent home with his parents as his breathing was normal. Six weeks later, Kaiba stopped breathing and turned blue. He was diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia, a long Latin word that means his that windpipe was so weak that it collapsed. He had a tracheostomy and was put on a ventilator – the conventional treatment. Still, Kaiba would stop breathing almost daily. His heart would stop, too. Then, his caregivers 3D printed a bioresorbable device that instantly helped Kaiba breathe. This case is considered a prime example of how customized 3D printing is transforming healthcare as we know it.

Since Kaiba’s story, 3D printing in medicine has been skyrocketing. And the list of objects that have already been successfully printed in this field demonstrates the potential that this technology holds for healthcare in the near future.

When someone suffers an injury that results in a severed nerve, the usual treatment involves sewing the two severed ends directly back together, or bridging them by suturing in a nerve graft. Such repairs don't always function perfectly, however. What works better is to let the two ends grow back into each other. Scientists at the University of Sheffield have developed a means of helping them do so, in the form of a 3D-printed nerve guidance conduit (NGC).

An NGC is essentially just a tiny tube that the two nerve ends are fed into either end of. As they grow, they're guided towards one another, until they finally merge. Non-3D-printed NGCs are already sometimes used to repair damaged nerves, although because they're only available in a limited number of designs, their applications are limited.

23andMe, Inc., a personal genetics company formerly forced by the FDA to halt sales of its direct-to-consumer Personal Genome Service, has now been granted authority by the FDA to market the first direct-to-consumer genetic test under a regulatory classification for novel devices.

The new permission is limited to Bloom Syndrome and autosomal recessive disorders.

The approval came in under the FDA’s “de novo classification option” for “novel devices of low to moderate risk that are not substantially equivalent to an already legally marketed device,” explained 23andMe in a statement.

The FDA is also reclassifying autosomal recessive carrier screening tests, with the intention to exempt such carrier tests from FDA premarket review.

While a decisive cure is yet to be found for Alzheimer’s disease, research is offering up ways that it could be slowed or even have its symptoms reversed. The latest cause for hope involves a naturally occurring molecule that researchers have found can serve as an inhibitor, intervening to halt progress of the disease during its formative stages.

The onset of Alzheimer’s disease is believed to correlate with the accumulation of brain plaques, a buildup of toxic protein clusters called oligomers that cause irreparable damage to the synapses and lead to symptoms such as memory loss. The Cambridge team, much like a number of other research efforts around the world, is examining this process to ascertain where, if at all, it might be halted.

The skin is the body's first line of defense against infection, with an extensive network of skin-based immune cells responsible for detecting the presence of foreign invaders. However, in addition to pathogens, an immune response can be triggered by allergens or even our own cells, resulting in unwanted inflammation and allergies. Researchers have now shed new light on the way the immune system in our skin works, paving the way for future improvements in tackling infections, allergies and autoimmune diseases.

An international team, comprising scientists from Monash University and the University of Melbourne in Australia and Harvard University in the US, looked at how our skin’s immune cells make sense of foreign lipids (fat-like molecules derived from bacteria), as well as lipids from human cells.

There’s a new game in town. It’s not really like Legos; it’s definitely more like Construx. But it’s metal, and you can make some pretty crazy automated machines from it. It’s called UberBlox. The construction set, like Construx, is reconfigurable, modular, and easy to use. Metal is, of course, more rigid than plastic and the control components are built around the Arduino and Raspberry Pi. The idea is that anyone can use their sub-system of related components and sub-assemblies to design and construct their own Uberblox machines.

Whereas it took 13 years and cost US$3 billion to sequence a human genome for the first time, senior author Peter White notes that now "even the smallest research groups can complete genomic sequencing in a matter of days." The chokepoint lies in the next step: calibrating and analyzing the billions of generated data points for genetic variants that could lead to diseases.

Many who have tried to kick the sweet white crystals will tell you that "sugar addiction" is very real, and there are indeed neurological underpinnings that back them up. MIT researchers have now discovered that the pathways of the brain responsible for sugar addiction may differ from those which govern drug addiction and healthy eating, which could be a boon for studies and treatment of compulsive eating and obesity.

According to the researchers, solving a person’s “addiction” (emphasis theirs) to sugar is more complicated than solving drug addiction as it requires reducing a drive to eat unhealthily, rather than simply reducing the drive to eat. In fact, feeding and drug addiction drives are different things even though they stem from the same areas of the brain.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.